About

About

The Theological Engagement with California’s Culture (TECC) Project is a collaborative academic venture endeavoring to engage the most pressing issues in California’s recent history, providing interdisciplinary theological engagement in addressing its research questions.

On Culture

For some, the idea of exploring particular cultures takes on the shape of a kind of laboratory science, conducted with routine hypotheses, tests, observations and conclusions. For others, the practice may seem tantamount to a fish trying to describe water. The TECC Project intends to explore Californian culture in both broad and nuanced interdisciplinary ways.

Culture itself often eludes definition and is notoriously difficult to describe. Raymond Williams noted that the term is “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” In his 1948 publication, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, Nobel Prize winner T. S. Eliot described culture as “that which makes life worth living.”

Offering his propositions on culture and how it changes against prevailing views, James Davison Hunter recently suggested, “Culture is, first and foremost, a normative order by which we comprehend others, the larger world, and ourselves and through which we individually and collectively order our experience.”

Emphasizing attentiveness to both inherent systems and practices, Kevin Vanhoozer describes culture as “a work and world of meaning.” He adds that “culture is made up of ‘works’ and ‘worlds’ of meaning.” In light of these and other descriptions, a working definition the TECC Project might begin with is as broad as the following:

the world of meaning, made by humans, in which we dwell; in contrast to nature, a comprehensive term for the beliefs, values, and way of life passed on from one generation to the next: a “web of significance” (C. Geertz); in contrast to economics, the sphere of producing and consuming not things but meaningful life.

Accordingly, we are seeking to engage any and all phenomena that have any bearing directly on or within the California setting.

On Theology

Theology itself brings unique resources to the exploration of culture that simply are not found in any of the other disciplines. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Marilynne Robinson says that, “Theology, of all modes of thought, integrates all the elements of human experience more exhaustively than any of them. Its purpose is to integrate at every level. That in itself means that meaning becomes pervasive rather than isolated in narrow interests and purposes.”

While conducting important interdisciplinary engagement, the TECC Project sets out to provide distinctly theological accounts of the various phenomena under investigation. The early Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo suggests that theology can speak about every reality that exists. British theologian Stephen Holmes says that Christian theology, by its very nature, is both capable of providing and indeed is “a coherent account of all created realities in relation to God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and of the God to whom we are thus related.” Theological engagement, then, will include reckoning some realities as largely sinful, and all as providentially-guided. Theology works from a transcendent basis for all reality, denying cultural relativism, and affirming every culture’s vast contingency.

As such, from a distinctly theological, confessionally-Christian standpoint the TECC Project seeks to engage any and all phenomena that have any direct bearing on or within California’s culture.

TECC is an innovative, timely initiative wrestling with one of the command points in global cultural production. I look forward to the insights it develops into how the church has shaped California’s social, political and economic life and how California continues to inform the social imagination of what it means to be church.

— Luke Bretherton, Duke University

OUR STORY

TECC is a collaborative academic venture endeavoring to engage the most pressing issues in California’s recent history, providing interdisciplinary theological engagement in addressing its research questions.

On Culture

For some, the idea of exploring particular cultures takes on the shape of a kind of laboratory science, conducted with routine hypotheses, tests, observations, and conclusions. For others, the practice may seem tantamount to a fish trying to describe water. TECC intends to explore California culture in both broad and nuanced interdisciplinary ways.

Culture itself often eludes definition and is notoriously difficult to describe. Raymond Williams noted that the term is “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” In his 1948 publication, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, Nobel Prize winner T. S. Eliot described culture as “that which makes life worth living.”

Offering propositions on culture and how it changes against prevailing views, James Davison Hunter recently suggested, “Culture is, first and foremost, a normative order by which we comprehend others, the larger world, and ourselves and through which we individually and collectively order our experience.”

Emphasizing attentiveness to inherent systems and practices, Kevin Vanhoozer describes culture as “a work and world of meaning.” He adds that “culture is made up of ‘works’ and ‘worlds’ of meaning.” In light of these and other descriptions, a working definition TECC might use to understand culture may be found in the following:

the world of meaning, made by humans, in which we dwell; in contrast to nature, a comprehensive term for the beliefs, values, and way of life passed on from one generation to the next: a “web of significance” (C. Geertz); in contrast to economics, the sphere of producing and consuming not things but meaningful life.

Accordingly, we are seeking to engage any and all significant phenomena that have bearing directly on or within the California cultural composition and setting.

On Theology

Theology itself brings unique resources to the exploration of culture that simply are not found in any of the other disciplines. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Marilynne Robinson says that, “Theology, of all modes of thought, integrates all the elements of human experience more exhaustively than any of them. Its purpose is to integrate at every level. That in itself means that meaning becomes pervasive rather than isolated in narrow interests and purposes.”

While conducting important interdisciplinary engagement, TECC sets out to provide distinctly theological accounts of the various phenomena under investigation. And theology is always particular. The early Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo suggests that theology boasts a unique capability of speaking about every reality that exists. British theologian Stephen Holmes says that Christian theology, by its very nature, is both capable of providing and indeed is “a coherent account of all created realities in relation to God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and of the God to whom we are thus related.” Theological engagement, then, acknowledges all realities as providentially-guided and some reckoned as largely sinful. Theology thus works from a transcendent basis for all reality, denying cultural relativism, and affirming every culture’s vast significance and contingency.

As such, from a distinctly theological and confessionally-Christian standpoint, TECC seeks to engage any and all phenomena that have any direct bearing on or within California’s remarkable culture.